Pew Seaweb was one
of the first ENGOs which targetted commercial fishing. SEaweb had initial
funding of $4.5 million from Pew, this was supplemented by an additional
$12.6 million from Packard and $0.6 million from Walton.

The grants from Packard
to Seaweb are available on a separate page (link).
It's amazing, in a disgusting sort of way, to see the foundation
dollars being spent in efforts to help support seafood sustainability
when fishermen have to fight the federal budget battle each
year - mostly unsuccessfully - to get enough researh
done to come up with adequate assessments of the health
of important fish stocks.

One of the first undertakings
of Seaweb was was a survey to determine the public's attitudes
towards ocean degradation. The Mellman Report. In an analysis
of the survey (here
- the included links are long out-of-date and seem to be
dead.) included a wealth of information, some of the most
provocative being "Americans believe the
ocean's problems stem from many sources, but oil companies are seen as a prime
culprit - The publicity around oil spills in the ocean has undoubtedly
led to the perception that these accidents account for the majority of the
ocean's pollution. In fact, 81% of Americans believe that oil spills are a very serious
problem. This is followed by chemical runoff from large corporate farms (75%
very serious), improperly treated water from towns near the coast (69%), contaminated seafood (65%) and trash, oil, and chemical runoff from
streets (65%). In contrast, people believe the least serious ocean problems are
air pollution from cars and industry (40%), and the killing of sharks
(30%)."

The people at Seaweb,
along with those at Fenton Communications and we don't know
how many other groups, had a mass shoulder dislocation from
all of the self-congratulatory back patting they did after
"saving" the Northwest Atlantic swordfish with
their Give Swordfish a Break campaign (link).
While it's far from clear how many swordfish they saved,
the U.S. swordfish fleet - and the U.S. swordfish market
are still suffering from this almost totally gratuitous
campaign (go to the Fenton Communications page here
for more information).